tanzania

hi all, is it even worth mentioning that i'm super behind on this as usual? i didn't think so.

SO, my big vacation. i went to tanzania to meet my dear brother john for two weeks after christmas. my trip started with the long bus ride to nampula (ya can't get there from here in quelimane by plane), running around there doing last minute errands (buying dollars to pay my tanzania entry visa, getting my doctor to fax me my proof of yellow fever vaccine which, interestingly, i needed to show to EXIT mozambique but not to ENTER tanzania), then flying to dar es salaam, henceforth known as dar. got to dar and my sweet brother, who had gotten there the night before, had made his way back to the airport to meet me. the taxi ride to our hotel reminded me a lot of my first ride from the airport to hotel in maputo, through the outskirts of the city, past car dealerships and industrial areas, but prettier public transport, brightly-colored "dalla dallas" (chapas) everywhere. dar is BIG - definitely bigger than maputo, so pretty overwhelming for me at first. that first day we got ourselves situated, figured out that, sadly, many restaurants don't serve beer because of the significant muslim population, and decided to head to zanzibar the next day.

getting to zanzibar is kind of crazy, the port is predictably bustling, and there are seemingly dozens of companies selling fares, and of course everyone you meet is trying to convince you to get on their boat or their friend's boat. so again, a little overwhelming, but we got a nice small, fast boat, maybe an hour and a half of a smooth ride over beautiful blue waters past spits of pristine white sand and a nice mix of commercial motor boats and traditional sail boats. our first day on zanzibar we just wandered around the main city of stone town, here being disappointed by the lack of cold drinks - apparently THE cable bringing electricity to the island had somehow been cut, so everywhere (that could it afford it) was running on generators, which were often reserved for silly things like light, and not refrigeration of beverages. and that first night happened to be new year's eve, so we were wanting cold drinks even more to get in the spirit of things, so we had a pretty lame new year's if you're judging by how late we stayed up/out. but it was still fun, that night (and every night in the city thereafter) we had dinner in this beautiful waterfront park, where tons of vendors set up stands and you can buy all varieties of meat and seafood grilled on sticks, soups, salads, falafel, pizza, and really yummy sugar cane juice with lime and ginger.

the next day we went on a spice tour, a must-do on zanzibar. a delightful little man led a group of us around the jungle pointing out plants and trees bearing pretty much every spice you've ever heard of, as well as several fruits and flowers you probably haven't. everything smelled delicious. on the tour we also saw the ruins of an old bath house built by a former sultan, had a delicious lunch of rice pilau and coconut curry, and went to a gorgeous beach.

the next day we decided to head to the "real" beach. zanzibar has several popular beach towns, and we picked one that was supposed to be a little less touristy and busy, called jambiani. we didn't have a hotel reservation, just recommendations, and the bus drivers brought us to the places they recommended, which i thought seemed like a pretty sketchy system, and probably can be, but worked out wonderfully for us because they brought us to a place that was too new to be in any guide book, only had 4 bungalows and a tiny restaurant, and was super peaceful. we spent 3 nights there, and it was the most relaxed i've been in over a year. we spent long hours sitting on the deck of our cute little bungalow reading and half sleeping and listening to the waves. we took long walks up and down the beach. we ate lunch in a different beachside restaurant every day, and delicious dinners at our hotel every night. on our last full day we went snorkeling on the reef just offshore, with a chill guy named "captain james" and his crew, and just us. they sailed us across the bay which was a dozen amazing shades of blue-green, out to the reef where we walked around, captain james kept picking up star fish and sea cucumbers and other random crazy things, and at one point he shoved a stick into a hole and killed an octopus! eventually we went back to the boat and snorkeled around little underwater coral islands, i felt like i was on the discovery channel, it's so quiet and peaceful under the water. at one point i spent several minutes waving my hands and making faces at a group of clown fish who were swimming around me curiously.

eventually we had to leave the beach, we returned to stone town for one more day, had fun wandering around windy allies, bought souvenirs from a nice masaai vendor we had met, had one last dinner in the park. the next day we headed back to hot, busy dar for one night, and the next day we got picked up to head out on a safari! this was our big splurge of the trip, john didn't want to come to africa without seeing wild animals. tanzania is home to some of the most famous game parks, like serengetti and ngorogoro crater, and they're supposed to be spectacular, but because they're spectacular and famous they're also supposed to be pretty much always crawling with tourists and tours and i couldn't wrap my mind around seeing wonders of "nature" surrounded by cars. so we arranged to go to some of the southern, more off-the-beaten-track parks. the first day we drove to the udzungwa mountains. on the way we drove through mikumi national park - the highway goes right through it - and there we saw our first big animals, elephants, some zebra, a lion guarding an elephant that had been hit by a car. i'm used to spotting deer, skunks, and turkeys from the car, but it's pretty wild to think about elephants along the highway not being noteworthy! the place we stayed the first night was a lovely little camp, called "hondo-hondo" (the swahili name for the hornbill, which were flying all around), on the side of a hill right at the edge of the national park. we were the only guests there, we stayed in a little "banda" (hut/bungalow), ate outside, and at night sat by a campfire and tried to communicate with the camp staff, who didn't speak any english, about the elephants ("tembo") we could hear trumpeting and rustling in the trees down the road! it was super peaceful, and wonderfully cool.

the next day we took a long drive to ruaha national park. we felt like we were in the park long before we actually reached the gate, because it was so isolated. and once in the park it was still another 15 minutes drive to the camp. the park was beautiful, rolling green hills, and awesome, quirky baobab trees everywhere. it was dusk as we were getting there, and as we drove in we saw some elephants right by the car, and some giraffes on the top of a nearby hill lovely-ly silhouetted against the darkening sky. it's hard to explain the sense of wonder at seeing large animals in the wild that are almost mythical to me, in the sense that i always thought of them as far away and not part of my world. john said he felt like he was in jurassic park in the scene where they first see the dinosaurs, and i think that really captures the feeling. consequently, i had the theme song from jurassic park rolling around in my head for the remainder of the trip! at this camp we slept in a round tin banda, the camp was quiet, right along a river, and guarded by an armed guard which made me a bit nervous to go outside to pee at night!

the next morning we left early for a game drive around the park. the game drive is the focal point of a safari, up until now we'd really just been driving to destinations. we drove around for about 5 hours in this beautiful park. it was kind of hazy and misty, which made it hard to take good pictures, but gave it a sort of mystical, surreal feeling. we could go for long stretches without seeing animals, but we saw tons: elephants, giraffe, zebra, lions (including one with a freshly dead zebra), impala, gazelle, hippos, baboons, storks, ibis (and i'm sure other birds whose names i'm forgetting), water buck, giant lizard, warthog, dik-dik (tiny deer) and some fast little rodent that looks sort of like a ground hog but apparently is a close cousin of the elephant. this was all pretty incredible, but the best thing for me was that we only passed 1 other car the whole morning, no other humans in site until we got back near the camp for lunch. in the afternoon we went on a "walking safari," just me, john and an armed guard. we walked for about an hour and half along the river, it was unbelievably peaceful. we saw alligators, hippos, baboons, and giraffes.

the next day we drove back to mikumi. once we had settled in there, at a campsite at the base of a huge baobab tree, we set out for an evening game drive. we saw some lions pretty near our camp (unsettling!), and were headed to another part of the park when our car got stuck in the mud at the bottom of a dip! not a big deal, we missed the game drive, but kind of enjoyed just sitting there letting the world go on around us. it started to pour, making it more impossible for the car to get out, and sometime after nightfall a park car came to get us, and we had to take a long route back to our camp in the back of a pickup truck, in the pouring rain. john said it was his favorite part of the trip! we got dry and warmed up and had dinner and went to bed early. the next morning we had one last game drive. we avoided the mud this time. mikumi is pretty, tho not as pretty as ruaha for me, it was a flat open plain, and in the morning covered in mist. it was pretty cool to see long graceful giraffe necks appear out of the mist, and we saw tons of them that morning. saw elephants, hippo, crocs, impala again. and water buffalo, and some new birds, and on the way out of the park, one lonely wildebeest. then we had our long drive back to dar.

we spent one last day in dar before leaving. we finally knew our way around the area of our hotel, so we just wandered around, looking for craft shops and places to buy gifts, tried some new restaurants, and went back to some old ones. it was a good last day, tho i, at least, was tired and ready to go home by that point. of course my going home was dragged out by having to spend another night in nampula then a long bus-ride home and i was thoroughly exhausted by the time i got here. it was a really great trip tho. i definitely recommend tanzania, it has great food, beautiful sights, and very friendly people. if you want ok pictures of all these wonders, mine are already up on webshots. if you want professional quality, contact my brother.